The Ji,hlava IDFF Award for the Best Virtual Reality was awarded October 26 to Missing Pictures: Naomi Kawase, directed by French director Clément Deneux. In the project, the renowned Japanese filmmaker explores self-acceptance through a bicycle trip love story. The project is a co-production of France, United Kingdom, Taiwan, South Korea, and Luxembourg.
The international jury selected the best VR work from twelve 360° films and spacial installations presented at the 27th Ji.hlava IDFF. The jury was composed of experts in the VR field – Czech artistVojtěch Radakulan, Hungarian expert from University of Debrecen Bujdosó Gyöngyi, and Krzysztof Pijarski from the Polish Lodz Film School.
Jury statement: The main prize for VR experiences goes to Missing Pictures: Naomi Kawase by Clément Deneux, a real-time animated piece that maximizes the medium’s potential, offering viewers full freedom of movement and a sense of story participation in a documentary about a feature film that was never produced.
The jury also accorded two Special Mentions:
- The project Flow VR by Adriaan Lokmaan (Netherlands, France) uses spatial imagery and sound to suggest fluidity, embodied by wind and sweeping air currents on a seemingly ordinary day. Jury statement: “We need to highlight an excellent VR video that shows how sensuous experiences, such as the caress of water on the skin, can be felt with just visuals and music in a documentary manner.”
- In The Man Who Couldn’t Leave by Singing Chen (Taiwan), former political detainee A-Kuen, tells the stories of imprisonment and persecution that happened in the 1950s in Taiwan. Jury statement: We award the honorable mention to a VR movie for pushing 360 video to its limits, in depicting historical events.
